U.S. millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen and a two-man, Russian-American crew returned from the international space station to Earth early Tuesday in a lightning-swift, bone-jarring descent, The Associated Press reported. The touchdown of the Russian Soyuz space capsule on the cold, wind-swept steppes of northern Kazakhstan, where Russia's manned-space facilities are based, ended the third trip by a private citizen to the orbiting laboratory. The descent from the station orbiting approximately 400 kilometers (250 miles) above the Earth took about 3 1/2 hours. Four search planes and 17 helicopters scrambled to meet the spacecraft, and search-and-rescue crew members helped the men out of the capsule, sat them in chairs and draped fur-lined sleeping bags over their shoulders to ward off the early dawn chill. Rescuers reported that the crew's condition was "good," according to Russian Mission Control at Korolyov outside Moscow. Olsen, 60, appeared unaffected by the gut-wrenching trip home. He grinned ebulliently, ate a green pear and drank water with gusto as he chatted with ground personnel. "I feel great," he said in both English and Russian.
